Sir Michael Parkinson pays tribute

He was one of the television journalists who greatly influenced my generation. We were lured into television by the mistaken ambition to be as good as he was.

He was a fine journalist and great storyteller and a beguiling interviewer whose best question was the one he never asked but simply just stood there, raised an eyebrow and nodded until the interviewee felt he had to speak.

I can think of no other television reporter before or since who created such a wonderful catalogue of unforgettable programmes.

He was a dear friend and I shall miss him greatly. So will television.

The show even inspired a famous Monty Python sketch about Whicker Island, a mythical place populated by Alan look-alikes awaiting that "inevitable interview".

Former Monty Python star Michael Palin, now a travel writer and presenter, was among others to pay tribute.

"Alan Whicker was a great character, a great traveller and an excellent reporter," he said. "He was absolutely at the top of his game in front of the camera."

David Green, director and producer at September Films, worked with Whicker as a young man and remembered him as "a true original".

"He was a television giant - made my first of 24 films with him as a baby director in Alaska 36 years ago," he said.

Whicker, he went on, was "a brilliant popular journalist and observer of the human state, who achieved legendary status among his peers and was loved by the great British public".

Travel presenter Judith Chalmers called him "an icon for the travel industry". "Wherever Alan Whicker went, people wanted to go too," she told the Daily Mail.

"He really delved into destinations and taught people so much. And he would always go about his work in such a quiet, diligent manner."

In its tweet, Bafta called his death "so sad". The broadcaster won two Baftas during his career - the factual personality award in 1965 and the Richard Dimbleby award in 1978.

Michael Palin said Whicker was "absolutely at the top of his game in front of the camera"

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